Harry Cole - Pants Officially On Fire

Back in September, the Sun’s alleged “Westminster Correspondent” Harry Cole, formerly tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, secured himself a front page byline credit on a Labour-bashing story headlined “LABOUR HYPOCRITE … Leftie who hates the Royals WILL kiss Queen’s hand to grab £6.2m … COURT JEZTER” (geddit?!?)”. And there was more.

An unsavoury sleazebag airs his views

“New Labour boss Jeremy Corbyn, who once backed a Bill to abolish the monarchy, will be forced to bend his knee before the Queen and kiss her hand in order to secure his position as official Leader of the Opposition … Mr Corbyn will join the Queen’s Privy Council, despite previous claims he would shun Her Majesty … This stunning act of loyalty exposes the hypocrisy of the life-long campaigner for Britain to abolish the Royal Family”.

What an exclusive! What a steaming pile of crap!!

Sad to say, though, as I pointed out at the time, the whole story was a pack of lies: the “£6.2m” referred to is what is known as “Short Money”, and its provision to the Labour Party is not conditional on the party leader joining the Privy Council. Moreover, Corbyn would not have been allowed to become an MP had he not sworn his loyalty to the crown, which he did in 1983. The splash was a crock of crap.

Tony Gallagher: not a good start

This was not a good start for new Sun editor Tony Gallagher, but perhaps readers would duly bin the paper and the 24-hour rolling news Speculatron would move on. Sadly for Gallagher, his managing editor Stig Abell, spinner Dylan Sharpe, and the serially dishonest Master Cole, the complaints began to arrive at new press regulator IPSO. Yes, not even the toothless successor to the PCC could save Cole’s bacon.

The Sun had to print the judgment ...

And so it came to pass that IPSO made its judgment: the complaint that it had duly considered was upheld. The Sun, through the less than good offices of Master Cole, had indeed published a pack of lies. IPSO noted “The newspaper had not offered a correction promptly and therefore had failed to comply with its obligations under Clause 1 (ii). The Committee required the publication of an adjudication”. And it got worse.

“The misleading information identified was repeated throughout the article, and appeared as the lead story on the newspaper’s front page. It was significantly misleading, formed the principal basis for the personal criticism of Mr Corbyn set out in the article, and resulted from a significant failure to take care not publish misleading information, given that the factors that formally affect the allocation of Short money were known to the newspaper”.

... but the front page teaser is hardly visible (bottom left)

Even worse for the Sun, they had to make reference to the adjudication on the front page. Luckily for the obedient Murdoch poodles, they got away with a tiny “IPSO complaint on Labour Short Money is upheld” at bottom left of the page, rather than letting readers know they had published a pack of lies. But what observers of the Fawkes blog already knew is now official: Harry Cole’s pants are well and truly on fire.

Master Cole has not featured on a Sun front page for a while. I wonder why.